Mondays Montessori

I honestly can’t get over how much stuff we have. This coming July we are tearing the attached summer kitchen off our house to add on a family room. Since we use the summer kitchen mainly for storage at this point I have had to go through it before it gets moved. My friend is…

Well, Christmas is over and we have MANY beautiful cards kept in a box. What to do with those cards? Reuse them for lacing cards! Your children will love looking at the photographs of their families, friends, and winter images while exercising fine motor skills. This fun can extend throughout the year. Collect interesting photographs…

The Knobless Cylinders are a Sensorial material, for discrimination of size. Cylinders are familiar to Montessori students, as other cylinders are the Knobbed Cylinders and the cylinder in the Geometric Solids. Work for discrimination of size include the Pink Tower and the Brown Stair, as well as any grading by size. The work of the…

One of the most amazing things about Montessori is that the adult prepares the space and the materials specifically for that group of children. My favorite thing about home is designing materials to suit my girls. They are very into their own baby photos, so I created some sequence cards for them with…

The Montessori Sets Basket is a numeration tool, for sorting and counting the numbers 0-10. It is one of my favorite math activities, because it is so enticing for children to look at beautiful things while sorting and counting. It is always fun to change this basket with seasons or unit studies. At our house,…

For this week’s Montessori post, I’d like to share a little bit about a Language Material called Metal Insets. Metal Insets are a classic Montessori Language Material, used for Motor Preparation for the ages of 3-6. It is a work that is appropriate for the first year student, but is well loved…

The Practical Life Area in a Montessori Classroom or Montessori Home may look very simple, but it’s purposes are a foundation for Montessori Work and Materials throughout education. Each area of Practical Life carries the same goals for the child- the direct aims of Coordination, Cooperation, Concentration, and Independence. Everything here has its place, which…

This is an activity I use with toddlers or three year olds, when they start to show an interest in writing their name. The Rainbow Name is a great activity for muscle memory in writing that I picked up from a fine motor workshop. I found it a good fit in Montessori, as it will…

A very important component of Montessori Philosophy is Independence. Anything that parents and teachers can provide to do for him/herself is a great benefit to the child. This week’s activity is considered Practical Life, Care of Self. For each major seasonal change, I like to provide a dressing basket to prepare and practice for the…

This week, I’m sharing a Montessori Math Material called Cards and Counters. This work can be made by anyone, with little or no cost. The material is used for practicing counting with one-to-one correspondence and learning the concept of odd and even numbers. All you’ll need: Cards, labeled from 1-10 (mine, pictured here, are just…